Ballymaloe Cookery School

Irish School Educates from Farm to Fork
Darina Allen and Ballymaloe Cookery School are on a Mission

The indefatigable Darina Allen is a whirlwind of energy, multitasking at every turn. Leading a group on a tour of the showcase gardens of the Ballymaloe Cookery School, Allen is busy picking up a leaf here, discarding a twig there as she talks about her food philosophy.

The celebrated founder of the Ballymaloe Cookery School, Allen's is the most recognized name in Irish cooking outside of Ireland. Among her many awards is Teacher of the Year from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), whose 35,000 worldwide membership includes virtually every culinary profession.

The Ballymaloe Cookery School is more than about the act of cooking - it embraces a farm-to-fork philosophy of growing food in sustainable ways and celebrating the bounty of the land. It means cooking in season with just-picked produce from the garden, fish caught hours before from surrounding waters and cream skimmed off milk from the farm's own cows.

The school sits in the middle of a hundred-acre organic farm with its organic market gardens, greenhouses and orchards. The classrooms have been carved out of farm buildings with rooms that are airy, cheerful, and bright with whimsical contemporary and traditional art. It exudes vitality, as students bustle to lectures, cook what they've learned in the student kitchens or eat their creations in the sprawling dining room.

The school offers a comprehensive professional 12-week certificate course. Shorter courses of a half day to a week cover specialty areas, including bee keeping, organic gardening or how to keep chickens at home. In addition, the school offers more than 200 afternoon demonstrations for the food-interested and custom courses for groups.

For St. Patrick's Day, Allen shared two recipes that can be adapted to fresh local ingredients in any area. Irish butter is available throughout the United States in supermarkets and specialty stores under the Kerrygold brand. The butter is made from Ireland's grass-fed cows with no growth hormones. The intense gold color of the butter is not from artificial coloring, but from the beta-carotene in the Irish grass.

“In Ireland we can grow grass like nowhere else in the world. Many of our best foods like our butter come from this lush green grass,” Allen said.

Irish butter has a rich and distinctive taste, very evident when slathered on Mummy's Brown Soda Bread, from the recipe collection of the Ballymaloe Cookery School.

For more Irish recipes, visit www.kerrygold.com/usa

Mummy's Brown Soda Bread

1/2 pound all-purpose flour (organic preferred) (about 1 3/4 cup)
1/2 pound whole wheat flour (about 1 3/4 cup)
Barely rounded teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
13 to 16 ounces buttermilk (depending on the consistency of the buttermilk)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Mix the flours in a large wide bowl, add the salt and sieved baking soda. Lift the flour up with your fingers to distribute the salt and baking soda.

Make a well in the center and pour in all the buttermilk. With your finger stiff and outstretched, stir in a circular movement from the center to the outside of the bowl in ever increasing concentric circles. When you reach the outside of the bowl, seconds later the dough should be made.

Sprinkle a little flour on the worktop. Turn the dough out onto the floured worktop. (Fill the bowl with cold water so it will be easy to wash later.)

Sprinkle a little flour on your hands. Gently tidy the dough around the edges and transfer to oven tray. Tuck the edges underneath with the inner edge of your hands; gently pat the dough with your fingers into a loaf about 1 1/2-inch thick. Now wash and dry your hands.

Cut a deep cross into the bread (this is called 'blessing the bread' and then prick it in the center of the four sections to let the fairies out of the bread).

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes then turn the oven down to 400 degrees F for a further 15 minutes. Turn the bread upside down and cook for a further 5 to 10 minutes until cooked (the bottom should sound hollow when tapped). Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 1 loaf.

Ballymaloe Fish Papillote

For each person:

4 ounce fillet of fresh fish, skinned, such as salmon, halibut, turbot, sea bass, monkfish or trout
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2 ounces (4 tablespoons) Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter
Sprig of fresh fennel or dill
Hollandaise sauce, purchased or from recipe below
Mixture of chopped fresh herbs for garnish

Salt the piece of fish and leave for 10 minutes. Take a sheet of aluminum foil and fold in half. Open the fold and smear a little butter on the underneath sheet, place the piece of fish on this, season with freshly ground pepper, put the remainder of the butter and a sprig of one of the fresh herbs on top.

Fold over the foil and seal the edges. Bake in a preheated oven 350 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes; serve immediately with a little Hollandaise sauce. Spoon a mixture of fresh herbs into the papillotes just before you serve them.

Makes 1 serving.

Hollandaise Sauce:

Put 2 egg yolks, preferably free range, into a heavy stainless steel saucepan on a low heat, or in a bowl over hot water. Add 2 teaspoons cold water and beat thoroughly. Add 8 tablespoons butter, cut into dice, bit by bit, beating all the time. As soon as one piece melts, add the next. The mixture will gradually thicken, but if it shows signs of becoming too thick or of slightly 'scrambling,' remove from the heat immediately and add a little cold water, if necessary. Do not leave the pan or stop whisking until the sauce is made. Finally add 1 teaspoon lemon juice (approximately) to taste. If the sauce is slow to thicken, it may be because you are excessively cautious and the heat is too low. Increase the heat slightly and continue to beat until the sauce thickens to coating consistency.

Hollandaise Sauce recipe adapted from Irish Traditional Cooking by Darina Allen, Kyle Books (c.1995)